This invention relates to delivery of respiratory gases particularly though not solely to patient interfaces for providing gases to patients requiring respiratory therapy.
In the art of respiration devices, there are well known a variety of respiratory masks which cover the nose and/or mouth of a human user in order to provide a continuous seal around the nasal and/or oral areas of the face such that gas may be provided at positive pressure within the mask for consumption by the user. The uses for such masks range from high altitude breathing (i.e., aviation applications) to mining and fire fighting applications, to various medical diagnostic and therapeutic applications.
One requisite of such respiratory masks has been that they provide an effective seal against the user""s face to prevent leakage of the gas being supplied. Commonly, in prior mask configurations, a good mask-to-face seal has been attained in many instances only with considerable discomfort for the user. This problem is most crucial in those applications, especially medical applications, which require the user to wear such a mask continuously for hours or perhaps even days. In such situations, the user will not tolerate the mask for long durations and optimum therapeutic or diagnostic objectives thus will not be achieved, or will be achieved with great difficulty and considerable user discomfort.
In common with prior art designs, is an inability to seal effectively when the user""s face becomes distorted. For example, as shown in the prior art mask of FIG. 1 when the user 300 is sleeping on his or her side, one side 302 of the headgear tends to be pulled tight while the other side 304 tends to be loose. This causes the axis of the mask 306 to be twisted with respect to the axis of the head 308xe2x80x94due to the net torque from the headgearxe2x80x94resulting in leakage 310 on one side. The user 300 sleeping on his or her side may also distort the facial contours around the nasal area 312 and may lead to further leakage.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a nasal mask which goes some way to overcoming the abovementioned disadvantages in the prior art or which will at least provide the industry with a useful choice. Accordingly in one aspect the invention consists in a device for delivering a supply of gases to a user comprising or including:
a patient interface, in use in fluid communication with said supply of gases,
securement means attached to or around the head of said user, and
engaging means adapted to slidingly engage said securement means with said patient interface.
In a second aspect the present invention consists in nasal mask for delivering gases to a user comprising or including:
a body portion having a inlet, in use said inlet receiving a supply of gases,
sealing means engaged with said body portion, and adapted to seal against the facial contours of said user, and
engaging means adapted to in use provide a sliding engagement with a means of securement to a user, and a compressive force on said sealing means to ensure said supply of gases is delivered to a user without significant leakage.
In a third aspect the present invention consists in a CPAP system for delivering gases to a user comprising or including a pressurised source of gases, transport means in fluid communication with said pressurised source adapted to convey said gases, and a patient interface in fluid communication with said transport means in use delivering said gases to said user, the improvement comprising that said patient interface adapted to sliding engage with a means of securement to a user, to ensure said supply of gases is delivered to a user without significant leakage.
To those skilled in the art to which the invention relates, many changes in construction and widely differing embodiments and applications of the invention will suggest themselves without departing from the scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims. The disclosures and the descriptions herein are purely illustrative and are not intended to be in any sense limiting.
The invention consists in the foregoing and also envisages constructions of which the following gives examples.